Drive My Car (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Drive My Car (2021) – R. Hamaguchi

Winner of the 2022 Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards as well as Best Screenplay at Cannes.  It was adapted from a story by Haruki Murakami (who I like but I haven’t read this 2014 story). Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi co-wrote the screenplay and this is his breakthrough film and the first of his I have seen.  I hesitated because it is 3 hours long. However, unlike some other long films, this was worth it – it takes time for the mood and meaning to sink in and for the characters to develop. The first 40 minutes or so, before the credits (!), show us the life of theatre director Yûsuke Kafuku (played with maximum reserve by Hidetoshi Nishijima) with his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) before the main events of the movie two years later. These first 40 minutes lock in place the emotional trajectories that continue to affect the people in the story and the pay-off that director Hamaguchi secures. Later, when Kafuku is appointed to a two-month residency in Hiroshima to stage Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, he is provided with a driver (who takes over his beautiful red Saab), Misaki Watari (played with equal reserve by Tôko Miura). We are treated, in relatively equal doses, to rehearsals of the play, which takes an unusual multi-lingual approach (highlighting the “communication effort” theme), and to the drives back and forth from the island hotel where Kafuku stays and the theatre. Relationships develop and there is a strong focus on grief, identity, betrayal. The cinematography by Hidetoshi Shinomiya is stunning, especially in the POV driving scenes and the music by Eiko Ishibashi assists with the emotional journey. There are ellipses in the plot and Hamaguchi occasionally chooses not to show us everything in a scene or holds back until the right moment. This creates suspense, but the viewer is rewarded by gradual reveals and there is a sense of an intellectual puzzle slowly fitting together. Chekov’s play is a major piece of the puzzle, with the dialogue of the play juxtaposing against the events of the film and reinforcing our perception of the characters and their internal states (often unspoken). Those who know the play may find different insights here. But those who do not are also in for a rich, meditative, and rewarding experience.   

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) – C. Akerman

Named as the #1 Greatest Film of All Time in the 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll (which runs every 10 years) and shockingly I had never seen it.  But when to find the time to watch a 3 hour and 22 minute film, masterpiece though it may be?  With my family off to visit Japan, now was the time. How strange then, the synergies with my current “lonely” lifestyle and the plot of the film, which finds widow Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) performing ordinary household chores on her own all day long while her teenage son is at school.  This is often hailed as a key feminist film due to the primacy of “women’s work” (in all its drudgery) – and Jeanne receives little gratitude or even acknowledgement from her largely non-communicative son.  His only real comments seem to focus on his mother’s sex life, revealing some Freudian subtexts.  Little does he know that Jeanne also draws an income from prostitution, with daily male guests to her little bedroom. Throughout the three days we follow her, she is emotionless and we get not even a tiny glimpse of what is going on in her mind. Yet tension builds through the endless “minimalist” scenes that director Chantal Akerman stages for us: endless “real time” minutes of washing dishes or peeling potatoes or walking to the shops. The tiny apartment (and seemingly the world outside) is perfectly colour coded in pale greens and blues and Jeanne’s wardrobe matches. Every shot is static, usually head on.  But as the running time accumulates and the perpetual routines continue to be enacted, we start to notice little things.  Was the stove left on? (It was).  Did she not button a button or comb her hair? (She did not). On the third day, we start the really wonder whether everything is okay for her. She stares off into space a bit more, some tasks might not be getting done. After the long slow build, this is riveting. The film ends with a surprising climax. In retrospect, the 200 odd minutes passed surprisingly quickly, holding your attention with its sheer audaciousness and with little mysteries (what is the flashing blue light anyway?). So, is this the greatest film of all time? The case would be that it has experimented dramatically with cinematic form while also making important arguments about the inequity -- and well-being destroying effects -- of women’s work (including prostitution) and the economic plight of single mothers. Fascinating, if you can find the time (and you should).

 

The Fabelmans (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Fabelmans (2022) – S. Spielberg

Here we have the reminiscences of a 75-year-old film director about his childhood and youth (this might be a genre unto itself).  We’ve all seen Spielberg’s films so it isn’t hard to make connections between aspects of his other films (divorce/broken families, suburbia, bullying) and his life story, as told here.  Michelle Williams and Paul Dano are the parents who move their family, including “Sammy” and his two older sisters, from New Jersey to Arizona and eventually to northern California, as the father pursues a career designing computers (from RKO to GE to IBM).  Of course, Sammy becomes interested in films and filmmaking as he grows up, using super-8 and then 16mm cameras to document important events in his life. He also makes gonzo fiction films with his friends and eventually makes a film for his high school graduating class (1964) documenting their excursion to a local beach (which has social ramifications for teenage Sam, Gabriel LaBelle).  But the primary thread that leads through the film is Sammy’s relationship with his parents and his realization that their own relationship has been compromised by his mother’s love for “Uncle” Bennie (Seth Rogen).  The principals manage this delicate emotional drama well, (although the early scenes with the young Sammy and his train set could have been shortened). It feels almost like another film when the family moves to California and the drama shifts to Sam’s experience of high school and away from the family: he dates a Jesus-loving teen, has run-ins with anti-Semitic bullies, and comes of age. As written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner, the film ebbs and flows, with some wonderful moments, particularly the small bits provided to Judd Hirsh (crazy Uncle Boris) and David Lynch (director John Ford), but it also possesses the same faintly mawkish flavour that is also a hallmark of this director’s work.

 

Tár (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Tár (2022) – T. Field

Cate Blanchett disappears into the role of Lydia Tár, the virtuoso conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. But director Todd Field has more on his mind than just allowing Blanchett to go deep into the character. His real aim would seem to be an examination of the effects of power on people, going beyond the simple maxim “power corrupts”. And it isn’t just Tár’s behaviour that Field examines but also those around her, whether they be groupies, the jealous, or others basking in her reflected glory. Clearly, being able to dictate outcomes for others has its advantages and Tár brazenly uses those around her, especially the vulnerable or those lowest in power (for sexual satisfaction but also as a demonstration of her dominance). The fact that he made the conductor a lesbian woman is a hint that Field wants to take the cultural discussion beyond the bad behaviour of men in the #MeToo era to question whether their transgressions are a result of gender or power – this might be taken as a political point (although clearly the two are difficult to disentangle in the real world). But Blanchett often shows Tár to be charismatic and her conductor seems genuinely interested in music (especially in the very heady New Yorker interview sequence) and in bonding with and supporting her young daughter. Even her bad behaviour (and it is very clearly bad) might be seen as encouragement or offering opportunity to those who show promise or who seek to follow in her footsteps, in the right light. Whether she uses such reasons to justify her actions (essentially lying to herself) remains hidden, although late in the film we get some clues (and it is tempting to replay some scenes in your head later). Indeed, the film begins to take on elements of the mystery or horror genre as we progress through it, feeling much like an unsettling psychodrama with raw nerves and exposed emotion on display. Although long, perhaps too long, it’s a knockout and a tour de force for the actress and director.

Moonage Daydream (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Moonage Daydream (2022) – B. Morgen

Judging by IMDb, director Brett Morgen seems to work principally on documentaries that take an expressionistic approach to the character study. In the case of David Bowie, this approach really works.  But it isn’t only the Ziggy Stardust era that benefits from maximalist cut-and-paste, sound-and-vision, overdrive – the in-text references (allusions to Bowie and non-Bowie related film clips) and non-diegetic voiceovers (mostly disembodied Bowie talking metaphysics) are suitable for any Bowie era. Interview clips allow Bowie to reflect on being Bowie, most enlighteningly (I thought) about the Let’s Dance era and the dross that followed it.  He was ready to be positive and to give the audience what it wanted – and later, he regretted it.  Good to know but he mostly lost me at that point.  Morgen gives relatively short shrift to the 90s and beyond, even as I hoped for more about his final period (The Next Day/Blackstar). But don’t come to this expecting a straightforward narrative (or even a totally linear progression) because this is just a stream of Bowie-consciousness.  But is there music, you are wondering.  Of course there is and it is great but it is much more likely to serve as a backdrop, with only excerpts from live performances over the years (sometimes edited together, so you see the different personas playing the same song at/on different stages).  Your mind does fill in the gaps. And yes there are gaps, historical and otherwise, but again that’s not really the point here. Would it be good in IMAX? Probably although you might get dizzy, even if it isn’t non-stop action.  Conclusion: as a Bowie-fan of longstanding, I highly recommend this.  I’m even more impressed by the man than I was before.